Report Says Ebay Launching Online Mall, "The Plaza"
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
The Plaza would enable brands to sell direct to consumer and help eBay compete against Alibaba’s Tmall
Rumors abound about the tricks eBay has up its sleeve in the upcoming months. According to one report from Macquarie Capital, the marketplace is planning to launch a new vertical this spring called The Plaza. While details about this launch are sparse, Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter says that this new site would allow brands to sell direct to consumers via eBay, but in a more controlled area than the traditional eBay marketplace. So far, despite the lack of details, The Plaza has been compared to Alibaba’s Tmall — an online mall that has more than 70,000 digital storefronts, including Nike, Gap, and most recently, Apple. Analysts say this could be an important move for the company, not only to compete with Tmall, but because it would enable brands to “access eBay’s customers without having to worry about weakening their brand.”
When prompted about this potential development, eBay remained pretty closed-lipped, saying: “eBay partners with brands, designers and retailers — and sellers of all sizes — to help them grow their business. As such, we are always exploring new, innovative ways to help them market directly to eBay’s global audience and connect them to the things they need and love. We don’t comment on industry rumors or speculation.” While this is certainly not a confirmation of the company’s plans to launch The Plaza, TechCrunch seems particularly optimistic about the fact eBay didn’t actually disprove the rumors.
This would certainly be an important strategy for eBay, considering it’s facing more competition from Tmall and seeing signs that many bigger retailers are becoming interested in selling directly to consumers. While Tmall is based in China, it has offices in the U.S. and has gained some pretty solid footing in the U.S., considering lucrative businesses, like Apple, have begun opening digital storefronts on Tmall. Indeed, it snatched up the ranking as the world’s second-largest online retailer, beating out eBay. Tmall is doing so well, Euromonitor International expects it to overtake Amazon as the No. 1 spot by 2015.
What to consider as you develop your ecommerce website
Rumors of The Plaza come around just as eBay announced that it is losing several executives. Chris Saridakis, president of eBay Enterprise, recently resigned because of personal reasons, while Hugh Williams, who oversaw the development of the company’s search engine Cassini, left to join software development company Pivotal. Saridakis joined eBay in 2011 and oversaw the company’s acquisition of GSI Commerce, which was part of the company’s efforts to draw larger retailers to sell on eBay. However, as Ron Josey from JMP Securities told USA Today, growth of this business has been slower than the company originally intended. If rumors of The Plaza are true, it could certainly help strengthen eBay’s enterprise business.
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